OXNARD : Official Stabbed During Dispute

An Oxnard city official was in good condition Tuesday after being stabbed during a dispute outside a Port Hueneme fast-food restaurant over the weekend, officials said.

City Planner Sonny Okada, 39, was stabbed three times while intervening in an argument at a Taco Bell in the 700 block of North Ventura Road early Saturday, police said.

While waiting for his order at the restaurant’s drive-up window, Okada said he saw a man arguing with a clerk inside. After the man jumped over the restaurant’s front counter, Okada said he went inside and pushed the man out of the restaurant.

“I thought he was going to attack the girl,” Okada said from his hospital room at St. John’s Regional Medical Center.

In the parking lot, Okada said, the man punched him in the face and stabbed him in the arm, stomach and back of the head and fled. None of the wounds was deep enough to cause major damage, a hospital spokesman said.

“I didn’t even know I was stabbed,” Okada said.

Police are continuing their investigation.

“You try to be a good Samaritan, and this is what you get,” said Okada, who expects to be released Friday.

Pausing a moment, he added: “But I’d probably do the same thing again.”